Colorado Corporal Punishment in Public Schools Laws

Corporal or physical punishment in public schools used to be commonplace. Today, it's legal, but exceedingly rare for corporal punishment to be used in the United States. Overtime, Colorado has also decreased its use of corporal punishment. In time, the people or legislators of Colorado may join 31 other states in permanently outlaw this practice.

In 2000, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) estimated 260 students were physically punished. Of those students, 19 were boys and 241 were girls, a huge disparity between the genders. In comparison, in 2010, OCR found no children in Colorado were subjected to physical discipline. Despite this, as corporal punishment is still legal it’s possible more children will be punished physically in the future, unless it’s outlawed by the people via the initiative process or legislators by enacting a new bill to prohibit the practice.

No school or other service provider or caregiver of a student with a disability is permitted to use corporal punishment or physically restraint (for the purposes of discipline) the child with a disability. The use of seclusion, basically placing the child with a disability in a room by themselves to punish them, is also prohibited.